John Mason

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John Mason (Australian politician)

John Marsden Mason (born 20 November 1928) is a former Australian politician, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for 16 years.

Early life

Mason was born in Rose Bay in Sydney in 1928, the son of Kay Mason and Stella Marsden. After his secondary education at Sydney Boys High School, Mason gained a place to study Theology at the University of Sydney while resident at St Andrew's College. Later, Mason studied at the Methodist Leigh College from 1949 to 1951 and later at the Melbourne College of Divinity in 1951.

Upon graduating from his theological studies, Mason became a Methodist Minister and was first posted to Lismore in 1952, then the Northern Territory from 1953 to 1955, Goulburn from 1951 to 1958, Tighes Hill from 1958 to 1962 and then finally to Dubbo from 1962 to 1965. On 27 March 1953, he married Lorna Boxsell and together had a daughter and four sons. One of his sons, Dave Mason, was the lead singer of Australian band The Reels.

Political career

John Mason (c. 1600–1672)

John Mason was born in Ravensthorpe,Northamptonshire,England in October, 1600. Little is known about his life there and where he was educated. He enlisted in the military in 1624 and went to the Netherlands to serve in the sectarian Thirty Years War 1618-1648, where he gained significant tactical military experience, first seeing action in the Breda Campaign. By 1629 he was a lieutenant in the Brabant Campaign and participated in the Siege of s'-Hertogenbosch, literally "The Duke's Forrest" in English, and known historically in French as Bois-le-Duc. He served with Lord Thomas Fairfax under General Sir Horace Vere in the army of Frederik Hendrik, The Prince of Orange.

In 1632 he joined the great Puritan exodus and sailed from England settling in Dorchester where he was promptly appointed as the captain of the local militia. In 1633 he commanded the first American naval task force and pursued the pirate Dixie Bull routing him from New England waters. He planned and supervised the construction of fortifications on Castle Island (later known as Fort Independence) in Boston Harbor. In 1634 he was elected to represent Dorchester in the Massachusetts General Court where permission was granted for him to remove to the fertile Connecticut River valley. In 1635 he settled in Windsor, Connecticut at the confluence of the Farmington River and the Connecticut River; he would live here for the next twelve years and serve as a civil Magistrate and military leader of the nascent Connecticut Colony. In 1640 he married Anne Peck from a prominent Puritan family; they would have eight children.